Sunday, July 20, 2008

Lux Day

Day 131I got my act together early and grabbed a train to Luxembourg City. I did double check though to make sure that I didn´t end up in the wrong country. When I got there I really had no idea which way the town was and just sorta picked a direction. I figured that the worst thing that could happen would be that I would end up in France!

After walking over a huge bridge with a valley beneath it I found the cathedral first. It was nice from the outside, but I couldn´t find anything really special about it from the inside. I then stumbled on the tourist office. The woman there gave me ideas of what to do. The problem was that there seemed to be some sort of kid sports event going on. The entrance to the castle was blocked. I had wanted to see that. I wasn´t really in the mood for an art museum and I had heard that the one here wasn´t that great anyway. The crowds also made checking out the city not a whole lot of fun.

I gave up wandering and found my way to the Casemates. Luxembourg was founded in 963. Over the next 1000 or so years defensive tunnels were dug all over the city. In 1867 Luxembourg became a neutral country. They were ordered to get rid of their fortress and all of the tunnels. Problem was that destroying the tunnels would cause homes and other buildings to collapse. Therefore about 17 kilometers, or just under 3 miles were left. These tunnels had been used by Napoleon. They were also used as bomb shelters during WWII. The tour took about an hour and consisted of walking up and down a whole lot of steps. It was pretty interesting.

At this point I decided to head back to Brussels. I had some blogging to do and wanted to pack my stuff up for the next day. After the blogging bit was finished I decided that the only way to properly say goodbye to Belgium was to have one more beer. I headed back to Delirium. I ended up chatting with a couple of Norwegians before calling it an early night and heading to the hostel.